The Lessons That Save Lives
by Beauty In Her Darkness
Summary: Peter used to complain when the Avengers insisted that Natasha teach him her more lethal skills. After all, how could he kill someone when he couldn't even punch Natasha as part of his training? He never understood why they made him do it, until the day came when it was only the lessons she taught him that could keep him alive.


Peter wasn't sure he would ever get used to joining the Avenger's training sessions. Between all of the famous superheroes and their weird powers, the training room (or, more aptly, stadium) was highly dangerous, but intoxicatingly exhilarating. Bruce wasn't even allowed near it as a precaution.

Tony, Rhodey, and Clint were beating the crap out of some punching bags as a warm-up in one corner. Before coming here, Peter would never have thought that Tony Stark, of all people, would know (and excel) at hand-to-hand combat. Especially since he did all of his fighting from within a nearly indestructible suit of armor. Tony was actually hitting the bags harder than the veteran and spy next to him. Tony was rarely serious but during training, he was more focused than everyone else combined.

Wanda's training was drastically different than everyone else's, for obvious reasons. She had learned basic self defense skills for practicality, but strengthening her magic was their true goal. To simulate combat scenarios, Tony had created a bunch of projectiles that had mapped out her weak points and randomly hurtled straight towards her. Scarlet light flared as she knocked them out of the air, rerouted them away from her, and created shields.

Steve and Bucky always wrestled. They were the only ones who could withstand each other's strength; so therefore, the only way to make them sweat was to pit them against each other. Watching them fight was terrifying, even though they were holding back half of the time. They punched hard enough to break a regular person's bones, and moved fast enough that even Peter's enhanced eyes struggled to keep up. Their fighting was technically limited to the wide, matted area in the center of the room, but their momentum often carried them far away from it. Once, Steve had accidentally pushed Bucky into one of Wanda's projectiles. Tony had covered Peter's ears to protect him from the profanity that ensued.

Natasha was busy teaching Sam and Peter hand-to-hand combat since Sam was accustomed to using his wings and guns, and Peter, his webs. That basically meant that she herself hadn't trained in quite some time, but Peter had seen her do mock battles with Clint. However, the two assassins knew each other so well that their fights were evenly matched. Spontaneously, she would decide to go running, or do rigorous workouts, but she didn't seem to need to train as much as the rest of them. It was entirely possible that she only trained when they were gone. Natasha was very secretive.

Everyone's training routines reflected their insecurities. Tony was afraid of being defenseless without his armor, like he had been when the Ten Rings took him years ago. Wanda wanted to understand and master the strange powers she had been gifted, but she chose projectiles as her challenge so that none of them would die like her brother did. Bucky wanted to make sure that Steve would be able to stop him if HYDRA ever regained control of his mind, and Steve wanted to give his best friend peace of mind. Natasha was probably too paranoid to train in front of them. When she was still an assassin, she had always had people supervise her training sessions and who could possibly blame her for wanting that to end?

It had taken a full month, and many arguments, before the Avengers finally concluded that it would be in Peter's best interests to learn hand-to-hand combat. Steve and Natasha had been the biggest advocates for it, and Tony the strongest opposition, but he had caved on the stipulation that Natasha, not Steve, train him. Despite Peter's remarkable endurance, Tony worried that if they messed up, Steve could actually hurt Peter. Steve and Natasha had readily agreed.

"Come on, kid," Natasha called out. "We have to get you home by nightfall."

Which wasn't incredibly far off. Peter adjusted his hand wraps before joining her on the mat. Tony moved away from the punching bag to watch their round, as did a few others.

"You ready?" Natasha asked, shifting her stance. He noticed her hair was tied back for once.

He nodded. Natasha ran at him immediately. She knew that the longer she waited to attack, the more his senses would adjust. Peter quickly rolled to the side, her foot skimming his hair. Just as he straightened, Natasha tackled him. He lashed out instinctively, but barely knocked her off.

"Use your arms," she instructed. "Don't be afraid to punch me."

"I really hate this," he mumbled.

"I know it's hard to hit a friend, but you need to be able to. We've been compromised before, and you need to be prepared to take one of us out," she said shortly. Peter knew she was referring to Loki using his staff to control Clint. "Go on the offensive. Hit me."

"I really don't want to," Peter protested.

"Hit me hard enough to convince me that you're taking me seriously and we'll give you ice cream afterwards," Natasha said with a mischievous glint in her eyes. Natasha and Clint loved teasing him about his age.

"Ice cream isn't worth this."

"Then hit me before I hit you."

Peter barely raised her arms in time to block her fist, and definitely not fast enough to dodge a knee to his stomach. He gasped, astounded by how strong she was, and pushed her off as hard as he could. As she tumbled to the floor, he back flipped away from her. Peter wished that she had never found out that the only way to make him fight was if it was in self defense.

She came back at him again, and he never had a chance to hit her. He blocked and dodged and let out a few unmanly yelps, but the attacks were coming too fast. There was no opening.

"Any day now," she said, hardly out of breath.

Peter hated this. He hated fighting her, hated not having his Web-Shooters, hated that everyone was watching Natasha kick his ass, hated that the only way to end this was to hit her.

"One hit is all it takes," she said, noticing how frustrated he was getting. Natasha was able to read people like a book. "Just one hit."

He let out a huff and then began to really fight back for the first time. She blocked him fairly easily, but at least she couldn't hit him anymore. He tried striking at different parts of her body, but she didn't seem to have any blind zones. He sped up the frequency of his punches and didn't even bother to wipe away the sweat that was dripping into his eyes.

And then it happened. Natasha left her stomach undefended and Peter seized his chance. The blow knocked her back three feet. As he rushed forward to make sure she was alright, her laughter filled the room.

"Are you okay? Did-did I hurt you?" Peter asked anxiously as she stood up, still laughing.

"That wasn't so hard, was it?" she replied, holding her stomach. Her words came out more as gasps, but she was still smiling.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hit you that hard," he said miserably.

"Kid, that's the _point_ of having Romanoff train you. She can take a hit," Tony said, tossing a towel at Peter. "Go clean up. Dinner is in ten minutes, and then I take you home, capiche?"

Peter nodded woodenly, then headed towards the elevator. He needed to shower and then change back into his street clothes. Steve joined Tony and Natasha.

"How'd he do?" Tony asked once the elevator doors shut.

Natasha shrugged. "He did fine, technically, but he's holding back. Even that last punch was weak compared to what we know he can do. What we've _seen_ him do."

"Do you think he'd go harder on Rogers?" Tony asked, tapping his fingers against his leg, a sure sign that he was stressed.

"It's not because I'm a girl or not enhanced," she said dismissively. "He's terrified of hurting any of us. He's still not used to being stronger than most people."

"That's partially why we're doing this," Steve said, handing her a water bottle. "He needs to get over that."

Tony snorted. "Yeah, and the rest of us are just great examples of working through our demons."

"We have to at least try to help him," Steve insisted.

"I'm not objecting to this training anymore, just pointing out this whole training strategy thing doesn't work for the rest of us," Tony said candidly. "Why should it work on him? Making Romanoff beat him up is a temporary solution, but it will probably be years before he gets over this fear."

"Since when are you an expert in psychology?" Natasha asked wryly.

"Since last night," he said promptly and pulled out his phone. "Pepper's calling. I'm probably going to miss dinner."

"That's fine, we'll make sure the kid eats. Are you still driving him home?" Steve asked. Tony nodded and answered the phone.

"Do you need to get that checked out?" Steve inquired, gesturing to the area Peter had punched. As tough as she was, she was still human, and even when it wasn't at full strength, Peter's punches could deal a lot of damage.

"Probably. Bruce will insist on checking either way. Looks like I'm missing dinner, too," she said, walking towards the elevator, Steve right behind her.

"Try to show up before Stark takes him home. He'll be terrified that he actually hurt you if you don't, and then he won't train anymore," Steve said.

"I'll try, but Bruce can be nearly as much of a mother hen as you," Natasha teased.

Steve just rolled his eyes and doubled back to start getting all of the remaining Avengers out of the training room. They weren't very traditional, but they did all make an effort to have dinner at the same time, especially when Peter was there. Since they all expected him to join the team after he graduated from high school, they tried to make him feel as at home as possible.

Peter showed up with wet hair and wore a hoodie and jeans for dinner. Natasha had to hide a grin. He was getting so comfortable here, when just a while ago he used to geek out over just knowing them.

"Where's Tony?" Peter asked, piling pizza onto his plate. He always ate a lot after training or battles.

"Pepper called," Steve said in explanation, which was enough for Peter. He knew Pepper's calls were always of the utmost importance. "He's still driving you home, though."

Peter nodded and flopped onto the couch with Clint and Natasha. He looked over at her guiltily.

"I'm really so-" Peter began to say before Natasha cut him off.

"It was a training session," she interrupted. "Rogers has hit me much harder, and I've actually _fought_ a few people in this room. Notice, I'm fine. A teenage boy who is reluctant to hit me won't be my downfall. You don't need to worry about me."

"I guess that means we're doing this again," he said glumly.

"You're not always going to have your suit and Web-Shooters. You need to be able to protect yourself no matter what," she said sharply.

"When am I not going to have them?" he demanded. "I bring my suit everywhere, even to school."

"It could happen, Peter. We've all been caught by surprise before."

Everyone on the planet knew that. Before Iron Man was even a thought in Tony's head, he'd been betrayed by a close friend and captured by terrorists for three months. When Bruce was in hiding, S.H.I.E.L.D had tracked him down, and forced him to help track down Loki, though that series of events had ended more favorably. Natasha and Clint had fought off people who they had known as loyal S.H.I.E.L.D agents and friends, but were truly HYDRA. Steve had fought the Winter Soldier countless times before Bucky was cured. The list could go on and on.

He didn't look happy by any means, but he didn't object anymore, merely stuffed pizza into his mouth. The tension between them was thick enough to cut with a knife, and Clint discreetly slid further away from the two.

"You'll thank me one day," she said simply. Peter didn't know how soon that day would come.

* * *

It should have been a normal day.

Peter had finished his homework for once, so instead of cramming it in before he had to catch the bus, he was able to sit down and have breakfast with his aunt. She kissed his cheek, handed him his backpack, and sent him on his way like he was a little kid, and not basically an adult. Tony had offered to give him one of his most advanced prototype cars after his identity as Spider-Man had been revealed and he could have such things without suspicion, but Peter had declined. Taking the bus with Ned and MJ in the morning was one of the few normal things left in his life.

With his hood up and out of his iconic suit, most people didn't recognize him. It was nice. If any other Avenger tried to step outside, they'd either be swarmed by fans and the press, or attacked by their numerous enemies. He didn't think he'd have to worry about that yet, and he couldn't have been more wrong.

He had almost reached the bus stop when it happened. He turned around as soon as he sensed something was wrong, but it was too late. Darts rained down from the buildings above him, and for every dart he dodged, two more hit him. As whatever poison or drug was coated on the dart seeped into him, his vision began to blur and his muscles weakened. Peter tried to pluck them out but it was too late.

Men dressed in dark clothes and hoods came at him from all directions. He tried to leap up onto the fire escape above him, but he was too disorientated, and only succeeded in hitting his head hard on the metal and falling into the cluster of men waiting below. Hands grabbed him and held him in place as they kicked and punched the young hero. Peter tried to break free, but there were too many, and he was too weak from the darts. No amount of biting, clawing, punching, elbowing, kicking, thrashing, or kneeing drove off the assailants. All it took was one more strong blow to the head to knock him unconscious.

* * *

Cold. It was cold, and the cold woke him up, and he couldn't open his eyes, and there were people around him who whispered. Hushed tones, gruff voices, harsh breaths. He smelled blood. Blood on him, blood on the others. Gasoline, too, that noxious scent that made his stomach turn.

Pain. Pain pulsed throughout his body. His head matched his heart. Thud. Thud. Thud, thud, thud, until there was no difference. Pain in his arms. Why were they above his head? Why was there cold, unyielding metal trapping his wrists?

The voices came closer. Hush. Why were the noises so loud? Didn't they know they made his head hurt? Head and heart, the duet. Thud. Thud. Thud, thud, thud.

"There's no way they don't know he's missing yet, those bastards watch him relentlessly. We found _six_ goddamn trackers on him. We just gotta pray they didn't implant any in him, or this whole mission is screwed," a man growled. Peter wanted to see them but his eyes wouldn't open. Or maybe they did and he just couldn't see. Everything was too confusing, just like when he'd first been bit by the spider.

"Are we moving him again?" a different man asked.

"Not for another three hours," a third man replied. The speaker approached him, his footsteps like nails down a chalkboard to the boy's ears. "Hard to believe this scrawny thing is their favorite pet."

"That scrawny thing survived ten darts. Most men die after just one," the first man pointed out. He sounded like the leader, but Peter was too immersed in pain to think about that revelation's relevance. The leader's phone chimed. "Dammit. Johnson texted. Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Stark were spotted at the bus stop. They've already sent out patrols to look for him."

"Why didn't they call his phone first?" There was fear in this man's voice. Peter found it oddly satisfying.

The men continued to squabble and gradually, his mind began to clear. They were talking about him. They'd taken him, and the Avengers were searching for him. They'd found all six of his trackers and no, he didn't have any implanted in him, though if he survived this, Tony might want to. They hadn't called his phone because they would have tried contacting Karen first. His suit...what had they done to his suit? He'd been wearing it beneath his clothes to go on patrol immediately after school but he felt cold air on his chest. Did he not have clothes on? And why couldn't he see anything, even though it felt like his eyes were open?

"If they won't call us, we'll have to call them," the leader said decisively.

"Are you kidding me? The kid's so high right now that he won't be able to get a word out," a fourth man barked.

"Only one way to find out."

Footsteps. Tap, tap, tap, stop. Breathing inches away from him. The smell of beer and gasoline clogged his nostrils. Why were all his senses so strong? What had those darts done to him?

 _Crack_. Pain in his cheek, the rough slap of a sweaty palm snapping his head to the side. He groaned feebly.

"Say something or I'll do that again," the man said calmly.

That didn't sound good. "Why?" Peter managed to croak out.

If he could see, he would be horrified by the crazed grin that appeared on the man's face.

"You're about to find out," he promised.

* * *

Natasha, Clint, and Tony found Peter's hoodie, shirt, shoes, socks, backpack, and his suit lying on the sidewalk mere feet away from the bus stop. At first they were relieved, because there was a tracker in his pants too, but they had ripped it out before taking him. Natasha found footage of the fight fairly easily, but it was grainy and from a bad angle. The men shot the camera just before they left so they had no clues as to what direction they'd gone in.

"They were ready for him," Clint said as they watched the video again. "They were all in position, ready with darts that could knock him out, they had already scared off anyone who would need to go in this neighborhood, and had six getaway cars ready. They shot the camera before we could see which car they put him in and parked the cars so that we couldn't see the license plates. They dumped all of the trackers and took his phone, but not before disabling that tracker."

"I'll send the feed to our allies, have them try to catch anything we might have missed," Natasha said, typing away furiously.

"But why take his phone?" Tony wondered out loud. "There's no point in taking it."

"Not unless they want to contact us," Clint countered, counting his arrows.

"Sir, you have an incoming call," F.R.I.D.A.Y. said.

"Yeah, we're kind of busy here-"

"It's coming from Mr. Parker's phone," the A.I. interrupted.

"Answer," he shouted. A faint sound of breathing came on. "Peter?"

"No, but he's here with me," a man said calmly. "I'm afraid his voice isn't fully recovered yet, so you'll have to talk to me while his throat heals with that amazing speed healing."

"You're dead, you're so dead," Tony swore, his hands clenched into fists. Blood welled as his nails dug into his palms. "I'm going to kill you for what you've done to him."

"You can try," he said, sounding bored. "I have a human shield that you won't risk the life of, so your threats are quite empty."

"What do you want?" Natasha cut in as Tony trembled with rage.

"What every man does. Money, something you all have plenty of."

"This isn't personal?" Clint asked dubiously.

"Oh, it is. Consider this reparations for your crimes. Hmm. It seems like Peter has something to say now. Let's put him on and see if you're willing to bargain afterwards."

"Don't do it, don't give them anything," Peter hurried to say, his voice hoarse and quiet. "Tony, take care of May. I'll be fine, just promise me that you'll-"

The phone was seemingly torn away from him. They heard the unmistakable sound of a fist connecting with flesh and a suppressed scream. The three Avengers shared terrified looks.

"And now you _do_ know we have your precious boy and that he's still alive," the man said smugly. "I think my partner just broke his nose. He's getting impatient."

Clint pushed Tony outside of the Quinjet before he could scream obscenities at the man. Natasha took over the conversation, thankful that years of experience with situations like these kept her voice from shaking. She couldn't afford any weakness when Peter's life was on the line.

"How much do you want?"

* * *

After the call, they pricked him with another dart to disorientate him. He was pretty sure that they moved him to another location, but that could of just been a hallucination. He was having trouble separating reality and imagination after being drugged again. All of the clarity he'd achieved was stripped away for what could have been minutes or hours. The pain, at least, faded, but that didn't mean he was healed. He'd been injured enough times to know the difference.

The men came back just as the drug had worn off again. He was sure they'd just start the cycle over again but instead, the leader was on the phone with the Avengers again, and more than just three of them this time. He could hear several of them over the phone, either bargaining with leader, arguing with him, or murmuring about how worried they were in the background.

"We've already given you proof that he's alive," the leader argued, sounding very aggravated. He must have been on the phone with them for a significant amount of time if they were stressing him out. Maria Hill always did say they could annoy God himself if they tried hard enough. "And we're not giving you more proof until we have the money."

"And we're not giving you any money until we know he's still alive." That was Steve. His voice was as unmistakable as Tony's. Peter briefly wished that it _was_ Tony who was on the phone, but he dismissed that thought quickly. Steve was better equipped to handle these kinds of situations. Tony was probably having a meltdown based on how he'd reacted to these kinds of situations in the past.

"If you want to talk to him now, we're doubling the amount," the leader threatened.

"Done," Steve said without hesitation.

Peter's eyesight was slowly returning. He could see the vague outline of the man who held the phone to Peter's ear.

"Hey, Steve," he said softly, acutely aware of how scratchy his voice was and how congested he sounded due to his broken nose.

All of the Avengers immediately tried to talk at once. Steve quickly shushed them. He knew it wouldn't be long before the phone was snatched away from Peter again.

"Peter, do you know where they're holding you?" Steve asked urgently, but too quietly for the men lurking near Peter to overhear.

"No, I can't see anything. Whatever those darts had messed with my senses. I think they're moving me around a lot, but I could just be imagining that," Peter admitted just as quietly as the super-soldier.

Steve swore, then said, "Listen, we're tracking you down, and we think we're getting close, but I can't guarantee anything. If you can get out, if you think you have even a millionth of a chance to escape, do it. How badly are you hurt?"

"I can't tell. Are they going to kill me?" Peter asked bluntly.

"We think so," Steve said heavily. "Can you describe-"

The leader took the phone away and promptly punched Peter in the gut, making sure to catch his pained grunt on the speakers for the Avengers to hear. His heart swelled with gratitude at the series of epithets that were directed at his kidnapper.

"That's a warning, Captain," the leader said smoothly, massaging his knuckles. "The next time you speak to him, we'll send you a video of us breaking his leg. Now if you don't drop off double of the amount we discussed at the location we gave you by the end of the hour, you won't hear from us for a week. Trust me, we can do a lot to him in that time."

"We understand. We'll be there," Steve said tightly and hung up.

The men left the room without another word and Peter immediately began straining against the chains. He was pretty sure that he could break the chain that pinned his arms up, but a solid piece of metal held his wrists together and he couldn't break that in his current state.

Just as he was about to break the chain, he stopped. Even if he got his arms mostly free, he still couldn't see well and had no clue how many people were in this building, or even where this place was. He'd only have one chance to escape and he couldn't screw it up, just like how he couldn't risk waiting for the Avengers to come save him, no matter how badly he wanted to. He needed to be strong enough to fight his way out. He needed to play this smart, just like how Natasha taught him.

So he waited. He listened to the guards gossiping excitedly about how rich they would be once Stark paid the ransom. They never said the Avengers, always Stark. Peter wasn't sure if this was because they had a personal grudge against Tony or because they knew he'd be the one paying. It didn't really matter to Peter. They were the first ones he needed to fight to get out of here and that was where their importance began and ended.

It took roughly forty-five minutes before his eyesight had finally cleared enough for him to see more than three feet away. Pushing aside all other worries and thoughts, Peter focused on breaking the chain. It snapped easily, and he caught it before it could fall to the ground and warn the guards that he had escaped. He did wait a minute to make sure no one heard, hardly daring to breath, before slowly assessing his injuries to determine how to proceed.

His legs were so weak that they nearly trembled as he walked. His head was still pounding and he feared what could happen if he hit it again. Even his enhanced healing could only do so much when it came to concussions. Blood coated his face from his broken nose and bleeding temple. His arms had lost all feeling from being being pinned up for so long, and the thick shackles on his wrists might as well have been boulders for how much they weighed him down. At least they rested in front of him, though. They'd be even more useless if they were pinned behind him.

He began to panic. He hadn't been this beaten up since he fought Toomes, and just like then, the Avengers weren't there to save him. He didn't even have his old, crappy suit and Web-Shooters, just pants to protect him from whatever they used against him. On top of that, he couldn't even use his hands to defend himself.

Although, this wouldn't be the first time he fought without being able to use his hands. After Peter had started getting better and better at sparring, Natasha began adding in challenges. Sometimes she changed the terrain they fought on or had him use nearby materials as weapons, but her preferred challenge was binding his hands behind his back. He had actually done remarkably well at those challenges, thanks to his precognitive senses and flexibility. He had never relied on his hands to fight.

Slowly, the panic faded. The Avengers had known something like this could happen and had given him all of the tools he needed to survive. He was used to fighting in seriously dangerous conditions against arguably the world's most lethal assassin. If he could do that, he could fight off these thugs. He had to if he wanted to live.

"I can do this," he whispered, heading towards the door. By his estimate, he only had ten minutes before the Avengers gave them the cash. He knew they'd wait until the last possible second to do it. Once they did, the men would probably come to kill him. He had to act immediately, or he might as well hang himself from those chains now.

The two men that were supposed to be standing guard outside the room they were holding him in were sitting down in the hallway with bored expressions on their face. They scrambled to their feet the second they saw him, but it was too late. If Peter wanted to get out of there alive, they needed to be eliminated.

A swift roundhouse kick to the first man's head knocked him out cold, if it didn't outright kill him. A rough kick to the other man's chest broke at least one lung and knocked him back against the wall, cracking his head. Peter couldn't afford to pull his punches. This was life or death, and he needed to live.

He kept moving. He couldn't dwell on them. Natasha's words came back to him. _Don't linger. No matter how badly you think you hurt them, don't look at their faces or else they'll stay with you for the rest of your life._ He had to listen to her advice. She was never wrong.

Hallway after hallway, like something out of a horror movie, complete with flickering lights and strange noises, were all Peter found for the next two minutes. His breaths became labored as he forced his bruised and battered legs to move faster, to get him the hell away from hooded men and chains. Finally, he found a staircase and hurried down two flights of stairs to the ground floor.

An alarm blared. Peter ran even faster, knowing that he had lost the element of surprise. They all knew he was free, so they would all either be looking for him or flocking towards the exits to guard them. If only he could find one of them and follow him to an exit, but his hearing wasn't perfect and his sight was barely passable.

Natasha had taught him to not wait to find a door, which would be heavily guarded. There's more than one type of exit. _Vents and windows, Peter. They'll get you outside much more safely than a door._ He had yet to see either, but a room must have them.

He ran into he first room he found, but it was identical to the room he had been held in. It was essentially a plain, gray, concrete square. At his best, he was strong enough to break through the wall, but right now breathing hurt. He had to keep going.

He spotted two men at the end of the hall. He briefly considered crawling along the ceiling and attacking them from above, but that would be too difficult with the shackles. Instead, he took a much more forward approach.

He charged them with a battle cry.

These men were better prepared than the last. They were armed with metal batons and dressed in full tactical gear, but again, Natasha had given him invaluable advice. _Use their weapons against them. They can't use everything at once. They'll be slow and reckless, because the armor makes them feel safe. Use that against them too. Complacency kills, so no matter how sure you are you can beat them, fight like your life depends on it, because one day, it might._

He ducked under their first two swipes and kicked at their kneecaps, causing them to stumble back, swearing. One managed to clip Peter's arm with the baton, but he managed to grab the rope off of his belt. After flipping away to avoid another blow, Peter used Natasha's favorite take down move to knock out the closer man. He jumped up and locked his thighs around the man's neck. Using his body's momentum, he flipped the man into the wall and landed lightly on the balls of his feet.

Satisfied that the man was stunned enough to not get up for at least a minute, Peter leapt onto the other man's back by briefly running on the wall. He wrapped the rope he had snagged off the man's belt around his beefy neck as tightly as he could. He wished he could cut off his own ears so he didn't have to hear the man choke as Peter strangled him. After what seemed like centuries, the man finally collapsed. A swift knee to the dazed man's head knocked him out.

The process continued. He ran down the endless hallways, occasionally ducking into a room to check for vents and windows, but never found any, and would inevitably run into another two man patrol and dispatch them by any means necessary. He utilized everything Natasha had ever taught him until he was more covered in their blood than his own. He had thought it would be impossible to hate himself more than he had when he first punched Natasha, but seeing his literally bloodstained hands fractured something inside of him. He knew he had killed those men. He had fought for survival and come out on top. Darwinism at its prime: life or death.

After what he guessed to be fifteen minutes, Peter found the doors. Surprisingly, only one man was guarding it. The leader. He must have sent everyone out to capture him when it took more than a few minutes to even spot him.

He was tired. He didn't want to fight anymore. There was only one more obstacle between him and his freedom, and _he didn't care_. He wanted to sink into the floor, to make the pain disappear, and the ache in his heart to vanish. He wanted water to ease the pain in his throat and clear his headache. He wanted food so he would have the strength to keep moving. He wanted to travel back in time and stop himself from ever leaving the safety of his home, wanted to go back to a time when his soul was still whole. He _didn't want to fight anymore_.

He had to, though. For May and Tony and Ned and MJ. For the Avengers, who treated him like one of their own. For Natasha, who had saved his life over a thousand times that day. Just one more, and then he was free.

Peter backtracked to the last man he fought, and (without looking at his face) plucked a dart from his belt between fabric-wrapped fingers. With a sad sigh, Peter threw it neatly onto the leader's exposed neck and he fell down instantly, a phone clattering out of his pocket. Peter's phone.

Peter awkwardly scooped it up, fumbling a bit due to the shackles. He searched the man's pockets for keys to his shackles, but found nothing but a few darts. He didn't even had a wallet or a phone on him, to Peter's frustration. They might have given him some clues as to where this place was.

He stuffed the phone in the waistband of his pants and walked towards the door. It was made of thick metal, kind of like the door to a vault, which meant he couldn't break through it. There was a keypad next to the door, but without Karen, or even a pencil and paper, he had no way of figuring out the code, without even mentioning that his head was too fuzzy to do such advanced math. He couldn't get out that way.

Peter pulled out the phone clumsily and dropped it. Cursing under his breath, he tried turning it on, but his hands were too covered in sweat and blood. He tried picking it up again, but it slipped right out of his fingers. He tried rubbing it off onto his pants, but it was too awkward with the shackles.

"I need to call them," he mumbled. He knew the hour was up, knew they would be panicking, believing that the men were coming to kill him. They didn't know he had come for them instead.

The phone began to ring, startling Peter. He lunged forward and swiped at the answer call option until it was obscured under blood, but it worked.

"We dropped off the money like you asked, now if you don't-" Steve began to say hotly.

"It's me, Steve, it's me," Peter choked out, blinking back tears.

"Peter? I don't understand, why didn't they answer? What's going on?" he asked, dumbfounded. "Stark, wait-"

"Peter, what happened? Are you hurt?" Tony asked frantically.

He closed his eyes. He felt nauseous. "They didn't answer...they didn't — _couldn't_ answer because...because-"

"Are they dead?" Natasha asked bluntly. The steadiness of her voice was the only thing that could reach him, and it pushed him over the edge.

Peter sobbed. He heard their voices trying to comfort him over the phone, and all the questions they were asking but he could hardly breathe. How could he tell them what he'd done? He had never killed before, and even advocated for Tony to take away the instant kill mode on his suit. All of that had changed in a matter of minutes.

"Peter, turn on the tracker on your phone," Natasha said. Abruptly, she was the only one speaking. "We can't find you if you don't do that."

"I can't," he managed to gasp out.

"Why not?" she asked calmly.

"Shackles. I can't get them off."

She sighed. "You remember what I taught you about shackles?"

As they had so many times that day, Natasha's lessons came back to him. _When you can't find the key or there is no key, you might need to take a more extreme route. If you really have no other viable option, break your thumb. You'll be able to slip the cuffs off._

"I don't think I can do that, Tasha," he whispered.

"Peter, listen to her," Tony said. "We have no way of finding you unless you turn on that tracker."

"Peter, hang up the phone. Then take your time, but you have to get free of those cuffs. Once you are, turn on the tracker and wait for us to come. Can you get outside?" Natasha asked.

"Not from here. I can search for another way out near the top floors," he said, wiping away his tears.

"Good. Do you have any injuries that require immediate attention?"

"I don't think so."

He heard many audible sighs of relief. "Okay. We'll be there as soon as we can. Hang up now."

Peter hung up.

* * *

It was five minutes before the tracker on Peter's phone was back online. It only took him five minutes to build up the courage to break his thumb. Despite the horrible circumstances, Natasha couldn't help the surge of pride she felt for her pupil that arrived just before the worry.

"Three minutes away now," Clint announced as he gave control of the Quinjet to F.R.I.D.A.Y. "Time to decide how we approach this."

"Peter took care of all of the hostiles. We just need to go in there and look for him," Natasha said as Tony projected a 3-D map of the building. "The only two access points are these doors on the ground floor and the door to the roof. When he called, it sounded like he was on the ground floor, so we'll search from the bottom up."

"We don't know that he killed all of them," Steve protested.

Natasha swallowed. "He did. I taught him what to do in this exact situation and trust me, mercy would not have been his first thought. He was fighting to survive."

"She's right," Tony said, rubbing his chest where the arc reactor used to rest. "When you're breaking out of somewhere, you don't care about the casualties until afterwards."

"I'll get the medical supplies ready," Sam said. "We know he has at least a broken nose and thumb, probably more. I don't know how to treat all of those drugs he got shot up with, though."

"Bruce will take care of that, just do what you can," Steve said.

They were silent for the rest of the flight. Steve, Natasha, Tony, and Clint went in. The other Avengers were busy tracking down the other men who had been involved in Peter's kidnapping and had already reclaimed the ransom money they paid. Now all they had to do was find the youngest Avenger.

Right away, they found a dead body.

"He used their own weapons against them," Natasha murmured, gesturing to the dart in his neck. "I taught him that."

"I don't care what he did. The only thing that matters is that he's alive," Tony said, staring at the dead man with a hard expression.

"We have to keep moving," Steve said, heading down the hall that Clint was currently checking out. "Peter needs us."

It seemed like in each hallway, there were two more bodies. Natasha usually paused to make sure that they were dead and determine how Peter killed them. It seemed like he mostly kicked them in the head, or bashed their head into the walls, but they found a man he had strangled to death with rope and another he had stabbed with a pocket knife repeatedly. Tony and Steve tried not to look at the bodies, but Clint and Natasha insisted on knowing how it happened. They claimed it was to know how to proceed with his training, but both men knew better than to believe that.

The next floor was entirely devoid of any sign Peter had been there, or that any of his kidnappers had patrolled that floor. They must have all converged on the ground floor, which meant he must have been held on the third. Without further ado, they scoured the next floor.

They quickly found two more bodies next to a room without a door. Clint confirmed they had been dead longer than the others, though not by much, before they checked the room.

"Chains. This is where he was," Clint said, then winced as he noticed the blood. "Yeah, this was definitely his cell."

"Let's keep moving," Tony said flatly, not even giving them a chance to respond before he was back in the hallway.

They checked the few remaining hallways and rooms but Peter wasn't in any of them. Tony began to panic, but Natasha calmly pointed out he had been instructed to find a way out near the top and that he was probably sitting on the roof waiting for them, ignoring her own apprehension.

They emerged onto the roof, guns at ready in case they'd been set up, but didn't spot anything except for a few chimney stacks. Cautiously, they moved forward, Steve taking the lead with his shield.

"Hey."

And there he was, sitting on the edge of the roof and staring down at the Quinjet parked below. His hair was matted with blood, his eye was swollen shut, his bare chest was so bloody and dirty that they could barely see it, and his pants were nearly shredded. His broken hand was cradled careful near his heart, but the shackled one was lying limply next to him. He looked like he'd been through hell and back, and in a way, he had. They all knew too well that there were some things it was impossible to recover from.

Tony stripped off his blazer and draped it around the teenager. "Thank God. Why didn't you call to say that you were up here? We would have reached you faster."

"By the time I got up here, you were already inside," he said. "Also, I accidentally dropped the phone off the roof."

Natasha looked down and saw the kid wasn't joking. The remains of his phone shone softly down below them.

"That's okay, we'll get you a new one. Can you walk? I can have Sam fly the Quinjet up here," Tony said, already reaching for his comms.

"That'd be nice," Peter said quietly, then buried his face in Tony's chest, his shoulders heaving along with his soft sobs. "I'm sorry."

Tony looked startled at the boy's words and gently held him. "What for? None of this was your fault. You have nothing to be sorry for. Peter, I'm proud of you. Do you even know how long you've been gone?"

"A day?" He guessed, tears still streaming down his face.

"Four," Tony corrected. Peter cried even harder. "They kept moving you, we always found where they were keeping you right after they left. We tried to talk to you a bunch of times but they kept using those darts on you. They kept threatening that they were going to kill you, and they would have if you hadn't fought your way out. We wouldn't have made it in time. It's a miracle that you're alive. And don't worry, I can get that shackle off easily. You'll be fine."

Sam landed the Quinjet next to them and Tony carried Peter on board since the boy was crying too hard to even think about moving. They helped him wipe off the blood, get in clean clothes, and bind his wounds until he had cried himself out and just stared numbly at the wall, his head on Tony's shoulder. He barely even noticed when they landed at the Avengers Facility. It wasn't until Tony started tugging him away from the others to get him checked out that he regained awareness.

"Natasha," Peter called out, pulling away from Tony slightly to face her. "Thank you. I used to hate what you taught me but..." he paused, and let out an uneven breath before finishing, "I get it now. I understand."

Natasha ran forward and hugged him softly, careful not to aggravate his wounds. She pulled back slightly and cupped his face, a million unsaid words words passing between the two.

As the young hero and assassin drew apart, Tony knew he would never tease her about the tear that spilled down her cheek right then. Some things weren't meant to be shared.


End file.
